Year in review: Impasse leads Harlem teachers to walk out

Contentious negotiations for a teachers contract spawned a five-day strike in August, killing the first week of classes this school year.

Staff reports

Contentious negotiations for a teachers contract spawned a five-day strike in August, killing the first week of classes this school year. Negotiations fell apart in early August, with the union blaming the two-tier pay scale as the reason.

Teachers hired before 2004 were on the 5x5 schedule and received 5 percent annual raises, but those hired since 2004, on the 3x5 schedule, received 3 percent annual raises.

Ultimately, the School Board approved in September a contract that granted all teachers the higher salary structure, giving all teachers 5 percent annual raises.

Artist is teacher of year

Harlem Middle School art teacher Ruth Meissen was named Illinois Teacher of the Year on Oct. 13 over seven other finalists and 170 nominees.

It’s the top honor for Illinois educators and qualifies Meissen for the National Teacher of the Year title. In January, Meissen’s title will take her out of the classroom as she tours the state as an ambassador for education.

The service project Meissen created to help a New Orleans school ravaged by Hurricane Katrina set her apart from other finalists. She organized student efforts to send classroom sets of books, supplies and money to Hynes School, where basically everything — paper, furniture and most classroom necessities — was lost.

Superintendent fired

Superintendent Pat DeLuca was ousted Oct. 17 with little explanation from the School Board other than that his removal could be a morale booster.

The former Harlem teacher returned to the district as superintendent in 2003 and was praised for resurrecting the district’s beleaguered finances. But his personality clashed often with teachers and sometimes with parents. He was at the helm during the teachers strike in 2004, Harlem’s first in 15 years, which delayed the start of school by nine days. The August strike lasted five days.

DeLuca will receive his full salary and benefits through Aug. 31. He earned $142,000 in the 2006-07 school year. Former curriculum director Julie Morris signed a three-year contract to serve as superintendent and has said repairing the district’s relationship with the teachers is high on her agenda.

New start times in store

During negotiations with the teachers union in August, the School Board added language to the contract allowing the district to change school start times by up to 90 minutes without the union’s approval. Before this contract, the School Board could change the start times only up to 15 minutes without union consent.

The board voted 5-2 in favor of the new start times this month in hopes of boosting wavering standardized test scores at the middle and high schools.

Some parents have complained that changing the schedules of younger students is unfair and inconvenient.